Wake Up Gang!

In October, Bangkok City Church held its first Sunday afternoon youth service, an event called Wake Up Gang. For now, these services will be held once a month, but with the success of the first service in October and the second service this past Sunday, I wouldn't be surprised if they start happening more often. We had five brand new students come to the church for the second youth service!

Wake Up Gang includes games, a short message about a topic relevant to teens, a worship song, talking about the day's topic, hanging out and, of course, eating.

This past Sunday's theme was peer pressure. After Jeremy, a missionary with OneHope, talked to the students and had them participate in a few fun illustrations, we broke up into small groups to discuss the issue of peer pressure.

I really enjoyed hearing what the students had to say about their experiences with peer pressure. Some young adults from church also shared some of the challenges they faced as teens and encouraged the younger ones to make the right choices.

At the end of Wake Up Gang, we each received a friendship bracelet to put around the arm of the friend standing next to us. These bracelets will serve as a reminder to pick the right friends - friends who will have a good influence and who will build one another up, rather than put one another down.

Om and I displaying our friendship bracelets. Om has been one of my English students for about five months now. She was really shy and quiet when she first started attending class, but now that I've gotten to know her, I've learned that Om is hilarious, outgoing, addicted to Facebook and opposed to all things homework. My friendship bracelet will hold special meaning knowing Om was the one who put it around my wrist.